


On Silver Wings

by DayGlowOrange



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Background Relationships, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mpreg, Panic Attacks, Soulmates, Supernatural Elements, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25558297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DayGlowOrange/pseuds/DayGlowOrange
Summary: In a world not that different from ours, where magic is everywhere - a subtle, gentle thing - once a year, on the longest night, everyone gathers around friends and loved ones to remember those they lost.  They share those memories from deep in their heart with the universe.  Memories aren't given away, or lost, but go on to exist in the cosmos - where most believe its helps them to live on.The first time Malcolm pulls the memories of Jin from his broken heart, the light in his hand is a brilliant, blinding gold, and he weeps like he's losing him all over again.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Jin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11
Collections: PSon Goblin Swap Summer 2020!





	On Silver Wings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prodigalsanyo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prodigalsanyo/gifts).



> _I had a dream last night  
>  That you came to me on silver wings  
> And I flew away with you on a painted sky  
> And I woke up wondering  
> What was real  
> Is it what you see and touch  
> Or what you feel_
> 
> _'Cause you're still here  
>  Oh, you're everywhere we've ever been  
> You're still here  
> -You're Still Here: Faith Hill  
> _

> **_Monday, December 21st, 2026_ **

The explosions of light and magic over the New York skyline seem almost as dull and lifeless as Malcolm feels.

Though the roof of his building doesn’t provide just the greatest angle, it’s the same one he’s been experiencing on the day of remembrance for the last five years. Only this time, it’s not in the arms of the man he loves - who had loved him so fiercely in return. 

Who had shown him what true, unconditional love really was.

He was going to be better. He was going to _do_ better. And Jin had shown him he could be. But more than that, he had shown Malcolm that even when he slipped, even when he tried his hardest and still didn’t make it, he was still worthy of love.

“Hey, kid.” 

Gil’s subtle, familiar alpha scent curled around Malcolm’s senses long before he started speaking, so Malcolm doesn’t jump or startle, just sighs and looks slowly back over his shoulder. He’s not alone, and the sharp notes of Dani and JT follow him closely, the familiarity of all three together settling over him like a warm blanket. 

It takes a second for Gil to finally top the ladder and get onto the roof, but when he does, he comes straight for Malcolm, pulling him without preamble into a warm, tight embrace. 

Malcolm would cry, if he had any tears left.

Dani’s touch is next, a gentle hand in his hair.

Then JT, with a firm grip on his shoulder.

“Shouldn’t you be with your family, JT?” Malcolm asks, voice muffled where his face is buried against Gil’s shoulder.

“Tally understands, bro. The first is always the hardest, and you need us.”

As much as he wants to, Malcolm can’t deny it. He had despaired at the thought of being alone tonight, at having no one to hold him as he cried, no one to share in his memories of the love of his life. 

For a long time, all three of them just hold him, close and comforted, protected from the world.

But no amount of love can keep out the New York winter air forever.

When Malcolm lets out his first full body shiver, Dani laughs. It’s a wet, broken sound and Malcolm, for once, doesn’t tease his best friend about getting teary when normally she’s as stoic as a stone.

“You ready?” She asks.

Malcolm nods and they all pull back just a touch, just enough they can stand in a quiet circle, holding out their arms towards the center, hands in fists. 

“I’ll go first,” JT says before Malcolm can even ask. 

A subtle flow of energy picks up and curls in the air around them, gliding over Malcolm’s skin whisper soft like a gentle brook flows around a rock.

When JT turns his hand over and opens it, there’s a soft ball of green light there, barely bright enough to illuminate their faces and cast eerie, dancing shadows across all four of them while the subtle sound of laughter dances in the wind.

“At your engagement party,” JT starts, staring down at the light in his hand like he’s watching a movie. “I don’t even remember exactly what the joke was, but he told the _dumbest_ dad joke I’d ever heard, insisting I use it on the kids, and I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard at the way he delivered it.”

Probably in a flat, no-nonsense manner. Jin always managed to keep a straight face when no one else in the room could hold back on their amusement. It made him the best at telling the worst jokes.

“Okay, my turn.” On Malcolm’s left, Dani takes a deep breath, then joins JT in holding her hand open. Malcolm barely has time to brace for the increased energy in the air, the babbling brook becoming a steady stream. 

Her light is blue, laced with brilliant, branching lines of violet, and a heaviness joins the subtle sounds of laughter in the air . 

“I was the one who had to tell him you had been taken by Roberts last year.” Her tone is heavy and eyes full of remembered sorrow. They all thought they had lost him for good that time, and to be fair, Malcolm hadn’t expected to make it back. “He was so devastated, but after he got out his initial tears - the determination in that man that you were still alive…. it’s what helped keep me going.”

Jin had been instrumental in recovering Malcolm and the other two Roberts had drugged and dragged away. His years as a journalist, as the silent one behind the camera that no one paid attention to, had proven invaluable in gathering up information on their location without their captor knowing they had even a crumb of a lead on him. 

Malcolm hadn’t been let out of his then-boyfriend’s sight for a month afterwards. 

And Jin, his beautiful, soft and steady Alpha, held him and cried with him every night the memories haunted him.

“Guess that makes it my turn.” Gil rubs Malcolm’s back, then rests his left hand just between his shoulder blades, holding him steady as, once again, the energy in the air picks up around them. 

It’s stronger this time, but steadier in ways only an Alpha can make it. 

Then Gil opens his fist.

Malcolm gasps. 

“Red?”

Both JT and Dani’s hands remain still but their gazes snap up to the Alpha in shock.

But Gil looks unapologetic. “Yeah, red. You hadn’t been dating long. I think it was early enough Ainsley still wasn’t speaking to you.” It had taken his little sister a _long_ time to get over the fact that her brother was dating the Alpha who had dumped her. “He came storming into my office one morning so angry I could taste it in the air. But once he was there, despite the raging energy I could feel around him, he was calm and as visibly cool as a cucumber. Then he let me have it about how I kept bringing you into cases that I knew would give you issues without any warning, how it was just making everything worse. I lit into him. Told him that you didn’t need someone protecting you, shielding you from things, that if he didn’t understand that he didn’t deserve you. It almost turned into a real mess of an Alpha match. But you know what he said to me instead of yelling back?”

All Malcolm can do is shake his head and stare in awe.

“He said, ‘I’m not protecting him, and I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to give him the choice to protect himself. That’s all.’ He wanted me to just, give you a heads up when I knew something would hit a little close to home, went on about how people had been directing and manipulating your life since you were born, many times in the guise of ‘for your own good’ and it would be a nice change for you to get the decision whether or not to step out and face something head on for once.”

Malcolm can barely manage more than a whisper. “What did you do?”

“I threw him out. I was so pissed off. I’d known you for twenty years. He’d known you for one. Who the hell was this asshole telling me how to treat the one person left in my life I still cared about? But then I was pissed at myself because he was _right._ May have finished off a bottle of scotch that night.”

“Did you ever tell him?”

“Hell no. But I did have a new found respect for him and was so fucking happy for you, kid. That you had found someone willing to fight beside you, rather than fight all your battles for you.”

Malcolm’s eyes blur with unshed tears. Jin’s most commonly uttered words when Malcolm was upset or having an episode were ‘what do you need me to do?’ No one had ever asked him that before, and it took him a long time to understand and appreciate just how much that one little question really meant. 

His own memories begin to surge, and suddenly he has no idea how to focus on just one. Images flash one after the other, some lingering some fleeting. Their awkward beginnings. Jin’s heart-stopping, world-shattering smile. That first date. _‘I would think you wouldn’t want to date another Whitly.’ ‘Good thing your name is Malcolm Bright then, huh?’_ Their first kiss. Their first time. Their first heat. The first time Jin admitted he loved Malcolm. Six months later when Malcolm finally believed him and admitted it back. The day Jin confessed he wanted kids, a family, and Malcolm had a panic attack thinking he was finally leaving. But no, he’d held Malcolm close, and kept talking, kept going. Jin told him that’s what he wanted, but that he needed Malcolm, and if Malcolm ever changed his mind he wanted to know, but that he would love Malcolm til his dying breath, children or no. They were engaged a month later.

True to his word, he had loved Malcolm, fiercely, til that dying breath.

Less than three months ago.

When Malcolm finally opens his own fist, his tears begin flowing freely, shoulders shaking with violent sobs while his small, little family gasps in shock around him.

It’s gold.

“Oh, Malcolm.”

Dani’s crying now, too. JT and Gil both have their eyes closed in a deep sense of sorrow.

It’s gold.

The color of the soul.

He can’t speak, wouldn’t even if all of his emotions weren’t caught in a tight lump in his throat. This is not a single memory of a moment in time, copied and created to be shared with the universe. This is the memory of a person, of a love so deep, so true that its bonds will never break. 

This is the memory of his soul mate.

His soulmate he only got to hold onto for five, measly years.

Malcolm’s chest heaves from the strength of his sobs, vision blurry and head swimming with tears. It takes all three of the others to hold him up, to guide him to release the energy they’re all holding onto, marking the end, signaling that Malcolm has really, truly, lost the love of his life.

He can’t even bring himself to look up at the sky and see what they’ve contributed to the night sky. 

He doesn’t care.

Carefully, Gil, JT, and Dani guide him back down off the roof and into his loft. Someone makes him drink a bottle of water, swallow an aspirin. Another guides him to his bed, tucks him in. He smells the subtle hint of tea and feels Dani’s soft curls brush his cheek when she kisses his forehead. Then he feels Gil lean in to do the same and can’t stop himself from reaching out, from clinging to the Alpha and breaking down all over again. But Gil just holds him, lets him break down and let out all the pain and misery this damn day of remembrance has forced upon him.

Eventually, Malcolm runs out of tears, and his body goes numb from the exertion. WIth one last, lingering embrace, Gil lays Malcolm back down with a gentle hand. “Get some rest, Malcolm. I’ll check on you in the morning, alright?”

Malcolm thinks he nods, curling in on himself the moment Gil’s touch is gone.

And then he’s alone. 

Sometime later, in the nebulous hours of predawn, when it’s not yet day but no longer true night, Malcolm wakes with a start.

At the edge of his bed, illuminated by the lingering streaks of color and magic that will slowly fade from the sky with the rise of the sun, is a heartbreakingly familiar figure.

“I saw the color of your memory.”

“ _Jin,”_ Malcolm scrambles for him, for his Alpha, and is caught up in a strong, sure embrace, inhaling deeply as he presses his nose into the crook of Jin’s neck. “I was scared I wouldn’t dream of you tonight. That I would be too numb.”

“You dream of me?” Jin strokes his hair a few times before curling his fingers in it so he can pull Malcolm back, so he can meet his gaze. To Malcolm’s immense surprise, there are unshed tears in his deep brown eyes and a sadness to his features Malcolm has never imagined in these cold, desperate nightmares.

“Always. Every night. But,” he exhales and strokes Jin’s cheek with his thumb. “You’ve never asked me that before. And you’re never sad to see me.”

Jin drops his gaze for a moment with a dark chuckle. When he looks up it’s with a sad, but playful smile. “Your subconscious has always been very particular about what it’s going to dream about.” 

“Hmm,” Malcolm leans in and steals a kiss that Jin deepens instantly, drawing him in further. “I think you’re giving me too much credit,” he whispers into the kiss.

“I don’t give you anything you don’t deserve, Malcolm.”

As Jin lays him out, runs familiar hands over Malcolm’s body, kisses and touches him in ways that drive him wild, Malcolm’s chest tightens even more. He thinks of everything that went into that memory, every joy, every pain, every godforsaken moment of _hope_ and then he lingers on the one thing he never got to share with him, the one thing he’d been scared to admit.

“I was going to tell you, it was going to be my wedding gift for you.”

Jin stops his ministrations and pops his head up, tilting it a little sideways to glance down at Malcolm curiously.

“Tell me what, baby?”

“I wanted a family. I had thought about it and agonized over it and I wanted it with you, _so much._ It wasn’t going to be easy, and honestly, with my medical history, maybe not even possible. But I was willing to try.”

“Oh, _Malcolm._ ” 

“And now it’s just something else I don’t get to have with you.”

With soft lips and softer words, Jin kisses away Malcolm’s tears like only he ever could.

He takes Malcolm apart piece by piece, as slow and lovingly as he ever did before. And it feels so real, too real, like nothing he’s ever dreamed of. When Malcolm comes, he starts to cry, because this _isn’t_ real, because he can ever have this again. But Jin soothes him, knots him, fills him so full, and bites down hard on the faded mark on Malcolm’s neck. 

They’re tied together and wrapped up in Jin’s arms. Malcolm fades and sleeps. Full of his Alpha. Surrounded by his Alpha. Loved by his Alpha. 

And when the sun becomes too relentless, wakes him from his sleep, his body is sore, neck tender, bed disheveled, and his heart _aches_ with that final feeling of loss. Malcolm cries again into the emptiness of his loft.

But when he’s through, when he has no more tears to let go, Malcolm gets up, breathes deep, and faces the day.

* * *

> **_Thursday, March 11th, 2027_ **

“For someone who spends most of his time avoiding the sun and outdoor activities, you’re looking a little _extra_ pale today.” 

Malcolm looks at JT with a flat stare across the conference table while they both wait for Dani and Gil to return with the old case files. “Thank you, JT, for your kind and considerate words. I will be sure to take them under advisement.”

JT rolls his eyes. “I’m just worried about you. Don’t want you coming down with something.”

“Thank you, mother. Your concern is duly noted.”

“Don’t compare me to Jessica. That’s an insult to Jessica.”

Malcolm bursts out with a loud and chest shaking laugh. 

“What? She’s a terrifying woman.”

“Who’s a terrifying woman?” Gil pushes through the door, Dani on his heels, both with boxes towering in their arms. JT and Malcolm leap up to help but Malcolm has to pause and get his bearings, hoping no one notices the moment of dizziness. 

“His mother.”

“Oof, hell yeah, she’s terrifying,” GIl agrees readily with a wink to Malcolm.

“Can we not talk about my mother? Ever?” He begs, snatching up the oldest box they brought in to start digging through.

“Only if you answer me this one question,” JT offers, and Malcolm looks up while the others settle in around the table, waiting, brows raised and impatient for JT to continue. 

“When was the last time you ate?”

A groan escapes Malcolm’s lips before he can bite back on it. “This again? I’m back to my normal eating habits, I swear. No starving myself for weeks on end.”

Dani narrows her eyes at him. “Which means you probably haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“At least,” Gil quips _completely_ unnecessarily.

And all Malcolm can do is stare at them all, slack jawed, and flounder for an answer. Because it _was_ yesterday and damn them all for being _right_ and seeing straight through him. But if he admits that the only reason he didn’t eat breakfast this morning is because the mere thought of food had made him want to vomit, they would worry even more. 

There is no winning scenario right now that doesn’t involve lying through his teeth.

“I’m fine.”

Which is the truth. He is fine. For a Malcolm Bright definition of the word. Sure he’s a little more tired than normal and he didn’t want food this morning, but his stomach is nice and peachy again, so there’s nothing to worry about.

Body betraying him in the worst ways - like always - his stomach grumbles. 

“Powell, grab my card and head to Rudy’s. Get our usual and an extra basket of the oven baked fries.” 

The fact that Dani was standing and moving towards him before Gil even opened his mouth is something Malcolm should probably note and fight about. Instead, he drops his head heavily against the table and groans, but doesn’t protest.

He is kind of hungry, after all.

They feed him while they work, until he insists he couldn’t take another bite, and then they cajole him into taking one more.

Outwardly, he argues and bristles against being fussed over.

In his heart, he’s reminded of how much he loves his little makeshift family, and how grateful he is they all take care of each other. 

Even if he winds up being the one needing to be taken care of most of the time.

Their research takes them through the rest of the afternoon and well into the night, file after file of unsolved and previously thought unrelated cases being poured over for something - anything - they can use to track their killer. 

It’s careful and methodical, line after line, and eventually, puts Malcolm to sleep.

He wakes with a jerk from a hand on his shoulder, peering around to find the room empty other than him and JT who’s pulling up the chair to sit beside him.

“Shit,” Malcolm mumbles, face buried in his hands before he rubs at his eyes. “Please don’t tell me I’ve been out long.”

“Nah, not long at all. Dani and Gil just left and I volunteered to make sure you got home to get some proper sleep.”

“I’m so sorry, that was… _wildly_ inappropriate of me to just go to sleep on you guys while we were all working.”

“Hey, man. It’s fine. I’m sure you’re a little more tired than usual lately.”

His sleep-addled brain recognizes the fact that what JT is saying is out of the ordinary. His sleep-addled brain also lets it slip right the fuck on by.

“Exhausted. Could sleep standing up.”

“And then when you do sleep, you keep waking up?”

“Yes!” Malcolm twists in his chair to look at his friend. “Yes, over and over again. Sometimes to pee, sometimes because my legs or my hips are just uncomfortable.”

“Probably having dizzy spells.” JT nods sagely.

“And getting sick at the smell of half the food I used to enjoy.”

“But only sometimes,”

“Yeah, like… wait.” Malcolm narrows his eyes at JT who looks smug and unrepentant about it. “How did you know about that? About any of that?”

“Because I’ve seen this before,” he says with a simple nod. “Three times, as a matter of fact. The third is still ongoing.”

It takes Malcolm’s brain way too long to catch up but once it does, he feels like he’s been gut punched. Instead of reacting with shock and an overabundance of denial, however, he opens his mouth, and laughs - hard.

“Oh, JT. You… you think I’m pregnant!”

“I’m old hat at the visible symptoms at this point and you just confirmed all the ones I can’t see,” he points out, not backing down.

But then Malcolm sobers, reality crashing in around him. “I haven’t had sex with anyone since September,” he points out, voice more broken than he expects it to be. It’s been six months since he lost Jin. It still hurts like a bitch, but it’s more of an ongoing throbbing pain than a sharp stab and twist of the knife. 

Hell, he hasn’t even _dreamed_ about having sex since Remembrance day. Without thinking, he reaches for the mark on his neck, the bite that had shocked him when it stopped fading and he hopes never completely does. 

For a moment, it looks like JT is going to back off, maybe even apologize for bringing that all up to the surface, but then he clearly resolves himself and doubles down. 

“Something is up with you. And as convinced as I am that I’m right about this, whatever it is, you need to get checked out, man. Dizzy spells and joint pain, stomach problems, exhaustion. If it’s not… If I’m wrong then none of that adds up to anything good.”

Malcolm’s mouth has gone dry and he shakes his head. “I’ve always had stomach issues.”

“Yeah, but they’re different now, aren’t they?”

There’s a ringing in Malcolm’s ears and a pounding in his head. He hurts, and he’s angry, and he doesn’t even bother saying anything else to JT, just stands and storms out of the conference room. He hears JT calling after him and resoundly ignores the man. He also ignores the dozen text messages he receives on his long walk home.

And when he sleeps, he begs his body to let him just rest.

To be okay, for just one fucking night. 

* * *

> **_Friday, March 12th, 2027_ **

The incessant buzzing of his front door drags him from sleep. 

He stumbles to the intercom and lets Cynthia up with his weekly order of groceries before shuffling off to the bathroom.

By the time he’s back out, the bright and cheery young woman who’s been bringing him his Friday deliveries for two years is dancing around his kitchen putting things away to whatever is playing in the one ear piece she has in.

“Morning, Mr. Bright!”

Malcolm can barely dredge up a wave for her as he makes his way to Sunshine’s cage to fill her bowls and let her out for the morning. But that doesn’t seem to faze the young woman, who’s perpetually in a good mood that Malcolm can usually appreciate. 

Today, it’s just draining.

“Oh, hey, Mr. Bright,” she closes the fridge and turns back to her box to sort through the small packets of pre mixed spices he gets once a month. “I’ve been meaning to ask, you never confirmed your heat delivery a couple weeks ago. Everything okay?”

The entire world just… _tilts_ around Malcolm.

Her words grow long and echo in his head.

Numbers - dates - and conversations with doctors flash through his memory. Four times a year. Dictated by a strict medication schedule. Best for his body. Best for his mental health. Carefully planned. Down to the hour. 

It was supposed to be his second without Jin, and he hadn’t been looking forward to it so much that he had blocked out that it just never showed.

The first without him had been agony.

At the moment, Malcolm thinks he’d prefer to go through that abject misery again than the pain and uncertainty clawing at his insides right now.

“Cynthia, you uh, you can go ahead and go. I’ll take care of the rest of this.” Malcolm, in a haze, stumbles around until he finds his phone and manages to bring up the service app, inputing a tip three times his usually already generous amount.

“Are you sure? I can.. hey, Mr. Bright? Are you okay?” He feels her coming close and jerks back before she can touch him, his body needing something that no longer exists, that he’ll never have again. 

“Sorry, sorry, you want me to call someone?”

Malcolm manages to shake his head to decline and, somehow, stand upright once more to try and seem calm and collected again.

He’s not fooling anyone if the fear and worry on Cynthia’s face is anything to go by. 

But she does leave, and Malcolm locks and bolts the door and promptly leans back against it, sliding to the floor a shivering mess.

Over and over again he presses his fingers to the bite mark on his neck. The memories and sensations that flood him from the mating mark that should by all rights have faded months ago combine with JT’s words from the night before to team up against all his years of learned logic and reason and science. 

Malcolm can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe, and his chest hurts, and his life is impossible.

This is impossible.

There’s something else wrong with him, something that’s making him seem… no. It’s all a trick, his brain finally breaking down completely, if a bit unexpectedly.

His chest hurts.

His lungs quit filling completely with air.

And everything goes black.

* * *

A cool, damp cloth is wiped across Malcolm’s forehead. 

He gasps at the sensation, dragging him to consciousness. Then he moans at how tight his chest feels, how sore he is from head to toe. 

But the smell of mint and lemongrass curls around him like a blanket and he seeks it out, clings to it until he’s clinging to the alpha it belongs to. 

“That’s it, come on, kid. You’re fine. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

“ _Gil,”_ Malcolm whines into the Alpha’s neck, wet cloth caught between their bodies but Malcolm doesn’t care and Gil doesn’t say anything about it. They stay there, wrapped up together, for a long time, Malcolm’s heart already racing again, but he forces himself to follow Gil’s breathing.

In.

Out.

Steady as a rock, Gil keeps holding him. 

In.

Out.

Breathe.

“Gil…” Malcolm whispers his name on a long, slow exhale, feeling something settle in his chest. Gil has always been this for him, a touchstone in a raging storm. He still remembers the first time he’d been brought off the edge by the older man, brought down from desperation and panic, two wrong thoughts away from ending everything. 

“You able to talk about it yet?”

Malcolm nods, but doesn’t start right away, shifting a little so he’s not clamped on so tightly, leaning carefully against Gil’s side as the Alpha leans back against the door. “I um, I didn’t have my heat.”

Though he tries to hide it, Malcolm doesn’t miss Gil’s hiss of shock, or the way the arm he has curled around Malcolm goes a little tighter. “There’s a lot of reasons that could have happened. Grief is… something else. I missed three ruts after Jackie died.”

It’s clear through his tone Gil knows just as well as Malcolm does that it isn’t the same. Not by a long shot. Ruts can be predictable. But more often than not they’re at the whim of their bonded Omega. And if unbonded, an Alpha can go long periods of time without them. 

“I’m on a very carefully controlled cocktail of drugs to make sure I have them on time, every time. And I didn’t miss the first one after he died.” With every word, Malcolm turns a little further into Gil, tries to inhale his scent deeper with every lung ful. His natural scent is underlined with the darkness of the coffee he’s always drinking, and Malcolm manages to relax just a little more. “And JT noticed something was up with me.”

“I think we all did.”

“I can’t be,” he insists. “I just…”

“Malcolm if you -”

“Gil. I haven’t had sex with anyone since Jin. Hell, I hadn’t had sex for an entire year before I _met_ him. He’s… he’s all I ever…” 

Malcolm thought his tears were all dried up in front of others. Sure, he’d still break down a few times in the dead of night, or when he saw something that reminded him of what he’d lost. But for the most part, he’s been able to keep it together when he’s not alone. 

“If you haven’t had sex in over six months, why are you freaking out about this. Obviously it’s something else.” Gil is still dancing around actually saying what they’re talking about out loud just like Malcolm is. If he says it, he makes it real. 

“Because I have _symptoms_ in addition to not having my heat _._ I have what could only be described as morning sickness. I am exhausted. I have strange cravings. My _hips_ hurt.”

“Could something have happened? Have you been going out? Are you missing any time?”

“No, no nothing that I can think of. I haven’t gone out _at all_ since September unless it was to your place, JT’s or Dani’s. There was just…”

“Just what. Come on, Malcolm. Tell me.”

“It’s so fucking stupid.”

“I want to hear it anyway.”

“The night of the solstice. Remembrance day. I… I dreamed about him. It was different from all the other dreams I’d been having. It felt… it felt so real. He acted like _Jin_ instead of the Jin of my dreams. And I told him about how I’d been planning on telling him I wanted kids, to have a family with him. Then all night, he said such beautiful things, about how amazing they would be, how amazing _I_ would be. In the morning, he was gone and I haven’t dreamed of him like that since. I want…” The tears come freely once more, and he shakes his head, feeling so ridiculous, feeling lost and tired and so, so heartbroken. His words are barely a whisper, soft and broken, admitted into the stillness of the space Gil has made for him in his arms.

“I want it to be real. I want it to be him. His.”

Whatever is going through Gil’s head, he keeps it to himself. Instead, he holds Malcolm there on the floor for a long, long time. Then, when the tears have begun to dry and his breathing goes to something resembling normal again, Gil helps Malcolm stand up and change, patiently waiting as he actually finishes putting away the groceries that he’d had Cynthia leave behind, then drives him to the clinic.

Despite Malcolm telling him he doesn’t need to be there, that he can go back, that they have a case to solve, Gil never leaves his side.

* * *

> _**Saturday, March 13th, 2027** _

In the living room of Malcolm’s loft, sitting on the low coffee table that is otherwise cleared of everything, is a single, fuzzy, black and white picture. 

It’s a baby.

With a clearly defined head and nose. Little legs are curled up against its body and arms held out in front.

His baby.

Their baby.

Thankfully, they didn’t ask questions when he asked if they could do a paternity test. 

He’ll have the results Monday. 

But he already knows.

Twelve weeks.

“Congratulations, Mr. Bright! You’re getting a late Christmas present!” The ultrasound tech was so sweet. But all he could do was stare.

Thankfully, Gil guided him through the rest of the evening.

He stares from where he’s sitting in the center of his couch to the picture just out of reach. Every line and bump and blip has been memorized all over but he can’t keep looking at it. Can’t face what he has to do all alone.

When Jin was alive…

When they were happy and excited about the future, he had convinced himself that with the support of the man he loved, with his Alpha at his side, he could do it. He could make it through and find the strength to be a good parent, to have a child who would be loved as unconditionally as Jin loved him. They were supposed to do this together. 

Now, he’s alone.

And he’s drowning.

Malcolm reaches for the picture, but stops himself.

He stands with a frustrated noise and pulls his hair.

For a few minutes, he paces.

Round and round the couch. Don’t look. Don’t make it real again. 

What is he going to _do?_

With Jin, it was still going to be a struggle. With a husband who loved him and knew him inside and out, he had the support he was going to need to not have a literal mental breakdown every other day.

Malcolm sits on the couch.

He snatches the picture off the coffee table.

And his door opens.

Sonogram picture still in hand, Malcolm spins around just in time to see a string of people pouring into his loft. 

Gil is first.

Gil is always first.

But just behind him is Tally, stomach swollen, a toddler with wild curls on her hip, trailed by JT with their four year old’s hand in his. Dani and Ainsley come through the door just before it closes on them, and Dani winds up holding it open for Edrisa to come through last. 

“MALLO!” Aniya, JT’s oldest, escapes her father’s grip to bolt across the loft and into Malcolm’s arms just as he’s coming around the couch with a confused look on his face.

Gil has two paper bags in his arms and a mischievous grin a mile wide. “You,” he says rather pointedly, “need a pick me up.”

Malcolm sniffs and holds back on the moisture already welling up in his eyes and turns to the pre-schooler in his arms instead. “Good _morning,_ my firecracker. What are you doing here today?”

“Mommy baked you applesauce cupcakes!”

“And she didn’t let you have any yet has she?”

Aniya shakes her head with an exaggerated pout. “So that’s the only reason you came over? So you could have some of mommy’s cupcakes?”

She looks offended that she would be accused of such underhandedness, and the pout becomes a beatific grin that would melt icebergs. “And I want to see my Mallo!” Then she leans in and whispers, “and Sunshine ‘course.”

“Of course. Can’t forget Sunshine.”

“And besides the need to ply you with carbs and loaded calories,” JT puts his own bag on the counter next to Gil’s. “We have some other things we need to give you. And Tally’s got _advice.”_

Dani is poking through some of the bags with Edrisa while Ainsley makes her way to Malcolm’s side to steal a hug the moment Aniya gets put down. With an aluminum foil container in her hand and a look of triumph on her face, Dani exclaims, “We just came for the cupcakes.” She nods to Edrisa who makes grabby hands. 

Ainsley has latched onto him at this point, up on her toes and he holds on tight before pulling her a little ways away from the crowd at the kitchen counter.

“You want to see?” He asks, which finally gets her to let go. 

“Of course I want to see! I don’t… _Malcolm.”_ She gasps when he sets the life altering image into her hands, her own eyes going watery.

It’s going around.

Must be something in the air.

“It’s already so big.”

“Twelve weeks.”

“Mom’s going to kill you that you didn’t tell her first.” 

He’s surprised she’s not here, to be honest, trying to direct everyone to do things her way. Though he wouldn’t be surprised if she just showed up of her own accord any moment. It’s not like she’s adverse to just waltzing through his front door on her own whims. Though, speaking of.

“Why are you guys all really here?”

He knows Gil told them all - Malcolm, in a fit of fear and desperation had asked him to. 

“Exactly the reason Gil said. You need a pick me up. JT and Tally brought your favorite hell raisers, first hand advice, and _books._ Despite my girlfriend digging into the sweets, she brought a coupon book for free babysitting because doing that for JT and Tally has worked _wonders_ at reaffirming our child free status. Edrisa brought the jokes, as usual, and your favorite sister in the whole wide world brought you this!” She digs around in her shoulder bag for a moment and pulls out a small flat package wrapped in simple brown paper. 

When Malcolm tears it off and sees what's inside, the waterworks are back on again.

“Ainsley… how…”

In Malcolm’s hands is a three picture frame, simple, but elegant without a lot of filigree or noise or words around the edges. The outer two spots have two familiar looking baby pictures in them. Malcolm’s on the left, and on the right…

“Where did you get a baby picture of Jin?”

Her smile dims, and the loss they all still feel hurts a little less shared between two people. “I got a bunch of them of both of you in preparation for the wedding. I still have them all, whenever you’re ready for them.”

The center frame is still empty, ready, waiting.

“How much did Gil tell you?”

“Just that you’re having a baby and that it’s complicated, and we shouldn’t push. But you’re my brother, I’m gonna push you around all I want. But no matter _how_ this happened or who did…” she stops the gesture to all of Malcolm rather than say anything so dark. “I know he’s the one you’re going to want to be thinking about, who you’re going to tell her about every Remembrance day, who you’re going to probably wind up naming her after.”

Malcolm’s smile is wet, but genuine. Then he looks up and pokes her. “So insistent that it’s a girl?”

“Of course it’s a girl,” she says with a wave of her hand before pulling him in for another tight and lingering hug. 

As she bounces away and back to the group, Malcolm takes a moment to look down at the pictures in his hands, the one of him and Jin, and then of their baby. He doesn’t know what they look like yet, and he doesn’t care. But he hopes they’ll look just like him.

Then he looks up, and what he sees takes his breath away.

Children are sitting on the counter, giggling and eating cupcakes as messily as possible. His sister and his best friend tease each other with frosting covered fingers, Edrisa and Tally are arguing over the best way to sort through the giant stack of books that seem to have materialized out of nowhere, while JT quietly puts away more groceries than Malcolm’s ever had in his loft at one time in his entire life. 

This, Malcolm realizes, is _exactly_ what he needed.

To be surrounded by the people he loves, by those that love him. 

It’s not the same, and the ache in his chest lingers, the tightness at the back of his neck from a mark that likely will never fade is still there.

But so are they.

And they’re here for _him._

“Told you,” Gil says from Malcolm’s side, startling him. But before Malcolm can jerk in surprise, Gil grabs him in a quick but tight bear hug, patting him hard on the back.

“Thank you, Gil,” Malcolm says quietly. “I don’t know how to tell you how much this means to me. How much you mean to me.”

“That’s what I’m here for, kid.”

Malcolm squeezes him a little tighter then has a wicked thought and pulls back to look up at Gil curiously. 

“Do you want to go by ‘pops’, or ‘grandpa’, or maybe ‘lolo’?”

And when Gil starts to tear up, face open in shock and a deep, honest sense of love, Malcolm just chalks it up to something in the air.

  
  


* * *

> _**Saturday, December 21st, 2030** _

“Lolo said the lights is all the.. The…”

“Spirits, baby.” Gil wraps Jina up in another blanket and tucks her long black hair into her thick knitted pink hat for the fiftieth time that hour. “Of all those we’ve loved and lost and want to remember, always.”

Malcolm wraps her in his arms and hoists her up, making a sound like it’s such a difficult thing to do, despite how she’s still light as a feather. His beautiful daughter giggles and goes limp in an attempt to make it worse, but once she’s settled on his hip she just snuggles up. 

“Lolo’s right. We’re going to see lots of beautiful colors out there tonight, and they’re all the memories that we’ve kept alive over the years of people who are very important to us.”

“Like daddy?”

The lump in his throat is easier to swallow, the pain in his chest a mere subtle ache.

Still there.

Always.

“Yeah, baby. Just like daddy.”

The three of them make their way up the stairs to the balcony of his and Jina’s new home. Malcolm had bought his own place with proper bedrooms right before she transitioned from a crib to a toddler bed, and it’s got a million dollar view of the sky and the city below them. 

Just as they promised her, the night sky is already streaked in every color of the rainbow. Explosions of color light up their face and she watches, mesmerized, for a long time before bouncing in Malcolm’s arms, excited to try it out herself.

“So you’re ready? You think you can do it?” He wants to encourage her, to remind her every day of how much her father would have loved her, and who he is and what an amazing man he was. But he doesn’t expect her to be able to pull those shared memories just yet. 

“Maybe… maybe you and Lolo go first.”

Gil laughs and kisses her temple, then nods to Malcolm.

They start with Jackie, Malcolm producing a softly glowing yellow light, sharing the story of the time she tried to teach him how to bake, and how his inability to care about precise measurements had ended in complete disaster. 

Then it’s Gil’s turn, his light full of multiple colors swirling all around each other. The light of his love, and his inability to pull any specific memory that stands apart from who she was - the sum of all her parts a beautiful rainbow of emotions and memories. 

Together, they let their memories go and both of them watch Jina watch in astonishment as the colors dart up into the air, curling around each other until they reach some unknown apex and explode in a shower of light. 

“Now are you ready?” Gil asks quietly. 

With a heavy but determined sigh, and her lips pressed together in a firm line, Jina nods. 

“Ready.”

All three of them touch their hands together just like they had taught her, Gil turning up his open first first. This time, the light is green, a brilliant green, and he regails Jina with a story of her father full of laughter and silly jokes. She’s giggling the whole time, her laughter joining with the energy from Gil’s memory to make the light even brighter than before.

When his story is over, she inhales, and closes her eyes. 

Malcolm gives her a little squeeze, and kisses her cheek. “You can do it, baby. Just think of how much your daddy loves you.”

Though he can feel her energy building, feels it drawing from his and swirling in the cold night air, he does not expect what happens when she turns her fist over.

In her hands, stealing Malcolm’s breath, is a softly glowing green light, laced with the brilliant gold of the love that she was made from. 

“Like this?” She asks in a whisper, voice full of awe, eyes unable to look away from what she’s holding.

Gil jerks his head up and he and Malcolm share a shocked glance. Gil breaks first, into a wide, brilliant smile. “Yeah, Jina. Just like that. What are you thinking of?”

“The story of when Daddy asked Papa to marry him.”

Malcolm frowns. “That’s not a funny story.”

“You said no first time. That’s silly.”

And honestly, Malcolm can’t argue with that. “It was very silly of me, you’re right.”

Though Jina still isn't looking away from her own memory, Malcolm opens his own hand and is relieved to see the bright, shining ball of golden light that is just as vibrant as it was the first time he ever made it.

He doesn’t even have to work for it anymore.

Malcolm just thinks of Jin, of their baby, and he feels the love and can share it without hesitation.

**Author's Note:**

> _I can see you in my baby's eyes_  
>  And I laugh and cry  
> You're still here  
> 


End file.
